


Sleepless Nights

by Sterling_Canary



Series: Writer's Month 2020 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pushing My Rarepair Agenda, Quarantine, Stress, Worry, Writer's Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sterling_Canary/pseuds/Sterling_Canary
Summary: The world's been quarantined, and a lot of the future is uncertain. That kind of worry can keep anyone up.(Writer's Month 2020 Prompt 2: Quarantine)
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Claude von Riegan
Series: Writer's Month 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859518
Kudos: 12
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	Sleepless Nights

Recently, an order was issued to all the residents of the city of Central Fódlan: stay inside and don’t congregate with others in public spaces. A virus had been making its way around the world, forcing similar orders in other cities, like Fhirdiad and Derdriu, and on other continents, like Almyra and Brigid. No one knew how long this was going to last, but each had their own guesses. Annette, ever the optimist, thought they’d be out of there in three months, tops. Claude, however, thought it would take half a year, at least. Either way, they had each other, and they would get through it one way or another.

* * *

“Tomorrow is the first official day of quarantine,” Claude sighed, slipping into bed beside his girlfriend, Annette.

“Yep,” she responded. “But we’ll be fine. We prepared for this, after all.”

“We did, we did.” _But what if we didn’t prepare enough?_

Claude had always been a wary individual. He planned and schemed his way through life, and that had managed to get him where he needed to go, and perhaps a little further. But no amount of planning could’ve ever prepared him for this.

“And if we need to get more supplies,” Annette continued, “we have masks...and you’re way too careful to ever break that six-feet-apart rule.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey.” Annette rolled onto her side and took his hand. “As long as we stay inside, we’ll be fine. We have food, we have things to do, and we have each other! We aren’t going to die, I promise.”

“...Yeah, yeah, I know. We’re going to be fine.” He kissed her hand. “Thank you, my sweet.”

“Of course.” She rolled back over. “Now, please don’t worry about it, and try and get some sleep.”

“I’ll try. Goodnight, Annie.”

“Goodnight Claude.”

Claude tried to get to sleep. Truly, he did. Unfortunately, all his efforts were in vain; he just couldn’t get his mind to settle down long enough to nod off. The stores were practically ransacked for food, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper, what would happen if they ran out? What would happen if either of them were laid off? Garreg Mach café wasn’t exactly open at the moment, and while Annette could easily work from home, she wasn’t exactly irreplaceable. And when they could go back to work, what if they contracted the virus? What if one of his friends contracted the virus? And how was his family doing back in Almyra? What if they’d already contracted the virus? What if one of them had _already_ died? He’d have to call them tomorrow, along with Annette’s family.

After running and re-running everything over in his mind, adding new eventualities each time (What if the café closed permanently? What if they weren’t able to make rent? What if they were to break-up in the middle of quarantine?), Claude turned and glanced at the clock. 4:00 am.

 _Damn_ , he thought. He sighed and leaned further back into his pillow.

Annette had fallen asleep long ago, resting her head on Claude’s chest. At least he’d always know that _one_ person was safe.

He began to stroke her hair, and she stirred. Shit, he’d disturbed her.

“Claude?” she whispered, her eyelids fluttering open. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “I haven’t been able to sleep at all.”

“Still thinking about the future?”

“What else?”

“I get it. I haven’t been able to sleep, either.” They lay there for a few minutes before Annette spoke again. “Do you want to go eat cereal?”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m kinda hungry, and we obviously aren’t going to sleep anytime soon, so...why not?”

“...Yeah, why not?”

They got out of bed and headed to the kitchen. Claude sat down at the table while Annette prepared two bowls of cornflakes. She set them down, and the two began to eat their early-morning breakfast. Somehow, it tasted significantly better than usual. Once they’d finished, they decided that instead of lying in bed, waiting in vain for sleep to come, it would just be better to turn on their Wii and play a few rounds of Boat Balance on Wii Party.

Claude didn’t know what the future held...but if it was anything like today, he thought that they’d be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt from an OTP prompt generator! I'll link it if you want to try it out (it's a ton of fun plugging your ships in there and seeing what prompts you get). Criticism is always appreciated!
> 
> Prompt generator:  
> https://prompts.neocities.org/?otp2


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